Seems someone over at the (American 2016 Republican primary) Bush campaign made a boo-boo.

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By the way, at this writing, when you type JebBush.com into your browser, DonaldTrump.com comes up. At first I thought it was a hack, but apparently, Jeb forgot to renew the domain names for his website — Trump just tweeted that out. Evidently the people working for Jeb are totally inept. Who would want to vote for someone like that for president in 2016?

In the great scheme of things, renewing a domain name may not sound like a Top-Priority Item. It doesn’t cost much to do, requires but a few minutes to accomplish, can be performed by the lowest guy on the totem pole, pretty much.

It’s a detail, but from that one detail much can be surmised, as does Mr. Simon about the Bush campaign people being “totally inept.” If you can’t get that right, how can you be trusted on the really big stuff?

Getting details right applies to principles of faith as well. Here are a few that come to mind.

Immersion has an undeniable and clearly stated purpose.
Music in worship isn’t done for taste or attraction.
Filling your role in the congregation makes a difference to God.
The only field goal is pleasing and glorifying the Lord.
Neophytes and other unproven talents ought not get placed in positions of trust.
Time, effort, and money spent on peripherals and material goals means they’re wasted on the mission of saving souls for eternity.
Putting away sin means personally repenting, then rebuking, confronting, disciplining, and excluding from fellowship.
The Spirit of God isn’t happy being confined to a book.

You get the idea. These, for some people, are the small stuff we shouldn’t sweat. Scripture begs to differ.

Just as getting the details right might make the difference in a political campaign, so getting them right in the realm of faith, according to what the Bible says, absolutely makes the difference in doing the will of God and finding one’s way to heaven.

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I inserted a little separator above (cute, isn’t it?) so that if you want to, er, separate the lead item in this week’s Corollaries segment in order to publish in a bulletin or other print media, you may do so. Aren’t I helpful?

¶ In our Bible reading group last night, we had people who had been baptized from less than a year to over 20, present company excluded, and not counting the unbaptized among us. That’s a nice range among so small a sample. I’d like to see more of the less-timers. Meaning, more baptisms. That’s a prayer, by the way. God gives the increase.

¶ People are asking me about the risk we run of catching the zika virus here in Brazil. The chance is much less than getting hit by lightning or by exploding debris from lightning. Oh, wait …

¶ Now that vacation month and Carnaval are past, Brazil can get started with its life and work in 2016. The saying, which I’ve heard since moving here, goes that the year starts only after Carnaval (think nationwide Mardi Gras, same time slot, but sloshing over the allotted days). Not far from being correct, either. Imagine having a month and a half, or more, cut out of your year, for whatever purpose, including work of the church. Though we do work-arounds in some ways.

¶ Door-to-door evangelism is not my strength, but I’ve done tons of it in my time. And though it’s become popular nowadays to knock it (pun intended), I do not join that crowd. Especially in light of such evidence as this, in the good ole US of A.

¶ A sad statement for a government official: “Pilate decided to give them what they wanted” Lk 23.24 ERV. Especially sad then, in that context of the divine plan of salvation, of redemptive history, when it meant the death of our Lord. Luke’s statement reeks of weakness, scheming, self-preservation, and sacrifice of justice. It shows a conscious process of decision based upon political concerns rather than protection of the innocent. It panders to the crowd. It signals the corruption of the system and the harbinger of social collapse.

The statement also has much to say in modern contexts as well, substituting the name of Pilate for current officials and candidates. You make the application.

#baptism, #corollaries, #details, #evangelism, #politics